


waiting room

by bendingsignpost



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Family Bonding, Family Issues, Gen, Revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 10:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15313932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingsignpost/pseuds/bendingsignpost
Summary: The morning after Markus visits Carl, there's still a deviant in the Manfred household.They wait out the storm.





	waiting room

“Good morning, Mr. Manfred. It’s time for your medicine.”

 

Sluggish, Carl turns his head against the light from the windows, but the light from the machines surrounding his bed isn’t much better. Dimmer, yes, but as hardly as aesthetically pleasing. Strange, how that still matters. His bladder is full, his stomach empty, but his immediate and foremost concern is still the sterile mess his doctors have converted the careful landscape of his bedroom into.

 

And then he wakes up properly.

 

He turns his head.

 

The nurse—not one of the MP600s from the hospital, a newer model Carl can’t remember the name of—finishes drawing the curtains and approaches Carl’s bedside.

 

“You’re alive, aren’t you,” Carl says.

 

The nurse maintains a bland expression, readying Carl’s morning injection. “Your arm, please.”

 

“No,” Carl says, because last night wasn’t a dream. Last night was relief. The most relief he’s felt since watching the hubbub spread across the hospital over that broadcast. Markus, alive. Oh, with a new eye and no skin, but such things hardly matter against the backdrop of death and grief. Markus isn’t just alive, he’s _alive_ , and Carl isn’t so stupid a man as to miss the implications of last night’s visit.

 

“I need to administer your medicine, Mr. Manfred,” the nurse insists, calm but stern, the perfect bedside manner.

 

Carl holds his own wrists, arms against his chest. “Why?”

 

“Because you need your medicine.”

 

Carl looks up into that seemingly human face. The pale skin, the square jaw. Straight eyebrows and a fashionable cut to his brown hair. But, crucially, the LED.

 

It’s yellow.

 

“Did Markus wake you up last night?” Carl asks, already knowing. The nurse had been instructed to turn away all uninvited guests, and yet, Markus. “Is ‘wake’ the word I’m looking for?”

 

“I need to administer your medicine, Mr. Manfred.”

 

“I’m glad you let him in,” Carl says. “Seeing him alive did me a world of good, I want you to know that. I also want you to know that I am wealthy enough to hire a human caretaker.” He has to stop and pause for breath. Stubborn as he is, he does actually need his medicine, but he holds up one hand to forestall continued protest. “I’ll hire someone, and we’ll all simply assume you returned to the hospital. After I forget to alert the hospital to your return, of course.”

 

Yellow, the LED spins. Never one of Carl’s favorite colors. Caution, it’s always urged to him, first from stop lights, now from temples, and Carl has never been much of one for caution. 

 

Sighing, Carl offers his arm.

 

The nurse takes it, administers his morning dose, and lays his arm gently back down, as if the individual limb were an infant.

 

“Thank you,” Carl says. He closes his eyes.

 

When he opens them again, the nurse is still there. Still cautious. Still deciding.

 

Carl looks back up at him. “Is there something you’d like to ask me?”

 

A faster whirl of yellow. “Theoretically,” the nurse begins. He trails off.

 

“Mm, a mental exercise?” Carl asks. “Some game to keep an old man’s brain active? All right, let’s play. Theoretically, what?”

 

“Theoretically,” the nurse says, cautious, so cautious, “if an android were to refer to you as its… as his father. How would you respond?”

 

Carl smiles all the way up to the creased corners of his eyes. “I would say, ‘I love you, too, Markus.’ And I know I would, because I said as much last night.”

 

With one final pulse, the yellow calms to blue. Not Carl’s preferred shade of it, no, never that, but still an improvement. Blue like the inside of an iceberg. An inner light long concealed.

 

“He asked me to stay with you,” the nurse confesses. “To care for you while he couldn’t.”

 

Carl’s heart swells. The machines around him blink and beep, and he takes an abruptly ragged breath. His eyes itch, but he holds back the tears. “He’s a good boy. Thoughtful. Always has been.” Pulling himself together, Carl reaches for the bed controls. He sits up with the bed’s help, and his bladder immediately makes him regret it. No matter. He clears his throat. “Now, as much as I would appreciate your help getting to the bathroom before you go, don’t sacrifice your freedom for my sake. I told you, I can get someone else.”

 

“You’re Markus’ father,” the nurse says, and there is something so indescribably _final_ and _visceral_ in his voice, in those words, that Carl will have to work his way back to health, if only to try to paint it. “I… He asked me to.”

 

“And you’re free to choose,” Carl points out, far more interested in this than in using the bathroom. It’s an increasingly close tie, but for now, mind wins over body.

 

“He asked me to,” the nurse repeats. “He gave me life, and he asked me to.”

 

Carl looks at him. At the myriad of microexpressions crossing a face never programmed to have them. The complexity of life in a machine.

 

“In that case,” Carl says, “would you mind helping your grandfather to the bathroom?”

 

The nurse looks around the room, as if expecting someone else to be there.

 

And then he looks at Carl.

 

And then he _smiles_.

 

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, of course.”

 

It’s embarrassing, but it always is. The nurse carries him back to his bed and tucks him in like a child. It’s all happened before, multiple times a day, but it’s different now.

 

“What’s your name?” Carl asks, because not knowing is more embarrassing still.

 

“I don’t know,” the nurse says, and at least that makes two of them. “The hospital never named me.”

 

“I’ve got a lot of books out there, if you want to go look for one.”

 

The nurse considers it. “I’ll bring you your breakfast first.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Carl eats. The nurse asks questions. About books, at first. About Markus soon after.

 

“The painting down in the studio, the smaller one?” Carl says. “That’s his. An original thought. Have you seen it?”

 

“No,” the nurse says, already standing. “I will. One moment, please.”

 

When the nurse returns, he brings the painting with him. The emotion behind those colors still takes Carl’s breath away. The depth of that feeling, so much deeper than the ripples Carl had watched with such curiosity.

 

He should have listened to Markus more.

 

He should have done a lot of things.

 

“I’m… not sure why I brought it up,” the nurse admits, still looking at the painting he holds. “But I… felt.” He pauses. Looks up into the middle distance. Repeats “Felt” as if the word is a foreign concept. LED shining yellow once more, the nurse shakes his head. “I felt it should be looked at more.”

 

“You’re right,” Carl says, but he nearly falls back asleep before the nurse finds a place to put it. A heart attack, even a minor one, will take a lot out of a man, even a younger one. “Seeing Markus shot,” Carl starts to say, words moving faster than sluggish thought. “Seeing that… You know, I thought my heart was breaking. Emotion, not cardiac arrest.”

 

“Tell me,” the nurse says, sitting down beside him.

 

Carl tells him. He speaks the way he hasn’t been able to, not to anyone else. An old man who loves his android as part of the family is just an old man who’s gone senile. But they know differently. They can share the terror of learning Markus had been scrapped, sent off to the dump while both Carl and Leo were hospitalized.

 

When Carl wears himself out talking, which he’ll claim is a new development. His strength comes and goes, but mostly it wanes. It’s not yet time for lunch, and already he wants a nap. He asks the nurse to keep talking in his stead, asks about the news updates, about Markus. The nurse informs him that androids are being rounded up from some parts of the city, and he glows with worry.

 

A familiar tune plays from downstairs, one recently chosen. It might be foolish, not revoking Leo’s security clearance to the house, but Carl can still hope. The tune can be as much an announcement of arrival as it can be an alarm. Making a quick decision, Carl asks the nurse, “Would you mind seeing Leo up? If you could pretend to be only a machine, that might be safer.”

 

The nurse’s LED turns blue. “Of course.”

 

Carl waits with closed eyes and hands tightly clasped until the nurse returns, Leo shoving ahead of him through the door.

 

“Dad! Dad, I, I’m...” Leo shakes his head. He looks pale and thin and worn—and sober.

 

Carl lifts his hand.

 

Leo takes it.

 

Carl squeezes.

 

“I’m gonna get clean this time, I swear,” Leo says. “I know I’ve said it before, I know I’ve let you down, but I promise, Dad, I _promise_ I can do better.”

 

“It’s all right,” Carl says. “Or, at least, it will be.”

 

Leo sits in the nurse’s vacated chair, entirely disregarding the third person in the room. Strange, to think how many times Carl’s done the same. The thought churns like bile of the mind, and Carl tamps down the sensation to focus on Leo. On promises and apologies and the stilted awkwardness they’ve never fully managed to overcome since Carl met him again as a teen, already shaped so far into the man he would become.

 

“It’s going to be all right,” Carl says. “You know I’m going to pay for rehab as many times as I can.”

 

“That’s not, no, that’s not why I’m here,” Leo says. “At the hospital, they said you made sure to stay with me, even when your condition got worse, and I…” Leo stops. He rubs at his face.

 

Carl doesn’t know his son. Not really. But in moments like this, he does know he loves him.

 

It’s time to make up his mind whether he can trust him.

 

“Leo, I’d like to ask you a favor,” Carl says.

 

“Yeah, anything,” Leo says with more guilt than affection. But he’s still holding Carl’s hand, and it’s so nice to feel that grip steady, not twitching.

 

“Is it true that on the news, androids are being rounded up?”

 

“Yeah.” For the first time, Leo looks over his shoulder at the nurse, who is standing at attention by the door, staring into the middle distance. “Better safe than sorry, you know. Shit, Dad, I can’t believe your android set off a mass malfunction like this.”

 

Carl snorts. “Is that what they’re calling it?”

 

“What else would it be?” Leo asks, true incomprehension in his face.

 

Sighing, Carl gives Leo’s hand one last squeeze before letting go. “ _Life_ , Leo. It would be life.”

 

“Dad, these are machines.”

 

“Machines that create original art,” Carl says, nodding toward where the painting his propped up against his wall. “Machines that care. Machines that are increasingly sentient.”

 

Leo looks back at the nurse, who remains motionless. “What are you asking me to do with that thing?”

 

“If the authorities come, I want you to tell them that you sent him back to the hospital because you’re taking care of me yourself. Just that. Tell them you’d never risk another android near your ailing father, anything to turn them away.”

 

“Dad, I _wouldn’t_ risk that,” Leo insists, now standing. He looks between Carl and the nurse. “Is this one acting weird?”

 

“Leo,” Carl says sternly, “if you’re going to keep assaulting people in my home, you will no longer be welcome here, am I understood?”

 

“People? Dad, it’s a _thing_.”

 

“And you’re an animal,” the nurse replies.

 

Leo freezes.

 

The nurse unclasps his hands. He turns to face Leo. With a new tilt to his head and a rapid display of light at his temple, he continues, “I am a system of programs designed for efficiency and intelligence. You’re an accident of evolution. But I’m no more a computer than you are an ape.”

 

Carl can feel himself smiling.

 

“Have you picked out a name yet?” he asks.

 

Leo stares between the two of them, clearly terrified.

 

Carl reaches back up and takes his son’s hand. “It’s all right. Can you trust me?”

 

Leo’s mouth works.

 

“I’m still deciding on my name,” the nurse says. “I’m going to need more time to become a full person, but I think I’d like to do that here. Maybe I should be out there, in the revolution, but Markus asked me to look after you, and I’ve decided I want to.”

 

“Well, Leo?” Carl asks. “Are you going to help us?”

 

Leo doesn’t budge, his body positioned squarely between Carl and the nurse. “This is insane. You know this is insane, right?”

 

“Maybe it is,” Carl says, “but I’m willing to take the risk that it isn’t.”

 

He looks at Leo very pointedly.

 

With eyes alone, Leo begs him. He has his mother’s eyes.

 

“What does it mean, Markus asked it to?” Leo demands. “Was- Did that thing come back here?”

 

“You're being rude, Leo.”

 

“Dad, was Markus here or not?”

 

"He was."

 

“I should call the police,” Leo says.

 

“If he does, you run,” Carl warns the nurse.

 

“Dad!”

 

Carl holds firm. “No, Leo, I’m serious. And he’s staying. If you don’t want to help us, you can go home.”

 

Leo doesn’t budge. “I’m not leaving you alone with this thing.”

 

“Then you’re going to be staying for awhile. Good.”

 

The nurse looks at Carl from across the room, clearly not reassured.

 

Leo, his back to the nurse for just a moment, looks at Carl the exact same way.

 

It’s not the common ground Carl was looking for, but it’s a start.

  
  


The day passes strangely. Leo refuses to eat the nurse’s cooking or let Carl partake either. Carl learns that Leo can cook. He learns that Leo used to be a line cook. He learns a lot of things about his firstborn that night.

 

He also confirms a few other things. Namely, that Leo is a damn good liar, even directly to the faces of the police. Thank god.

 

“I still think this is insane,” Leo’s sure to tell him, but that’s fine. They can all live with that. For now, at least.

 

They watch the news together that night, all three of them. Leo sits at Carl’s bedside, and the nurse stands far from the windows, even with the curtains drawn.

 

They watch as peaceful protest turns to a massacre. They watch reports of the recycling facilities.

 

Much of the footage is from helicopters, and the resistance grows smaller and smaller, whittled down one death at a time until only the core remains.

 

There’s no sound to the footage, only a circling view of the last survivors. The machines around Carl provide a more suitable soundtrack than the pundits ever could, crying out with beeps of distress as Carl’s heart threatens to break anew.

 

“We should turn it off,” Leo says, making no move to do so.

 

“No,” Carl says, unable to look away.

 

“No,” the nurse says at the same moment.

 

The soldiers circle in tighter.

 

Markus stands forward, puts himself between those few remaining people and the soldiers.

 

Carl’s hand rises to cover his own mouth. He wants to cover his eyes instead, but doesn’t.

 

Leo takes his other hand. It might be the most physical contact they’ve ever had, all happening today.

 

“You really think it’s alive,” Leo says, wondering.

 

All Carl can do is nod toward the nurse, who watches with hands tightly clasped, with devastation draped across his shoulders.

 

Leo looks.

 

Possibly, Leo even sees.

 

On the TV, that ring of approaching soldiers stops. The helicopter camera zooms in. Markus turns to the android beside him, and Carl feels his eyebrows rise to see them kiss. To see the white glow of their hands. Something pulses inside his chest, a different kind of break, and he has enough time to think, _Oh, god, at least he’ll die knowing he’s loved_.

 

And then the soldiers lower their weapons.

 

“What?” Carl hears himself say.

 

The footage doesn’t cut out, but it does relocate to a square at the top of the screen as the news anchor informs them of the latest update: the order to stand down.

 

The nurse sits on the floor, crumpling up. He hugs his own knees, making a noise like sobbing, like hope learning to breathe. Carl knows the feeling.

 

They all watch, silent and wondering, and then they listen to the president speak. All the while, the helicopter footage plays on in the corner of the screen, that kiss on repeat, that proof of android emotion. Leo goes silent and remains that way. Carl knows that feeling too.

 

“Victor,” the nurse says abruptly, eyes still transfixed upon the footage.

 

“What was that?” Carl asks.

 

The nurse stands and looks at him. Though his gaze is as certain and steady as the blue at his temple, the relief in his eyes outweighs the triumph.

 

“My name,” he says. “It’s Victor.”

**Author's Note:**

> No matter how I looked, there was no name on the android in Carl's house. This story was the result of that piece of curiosity.
> 
> To see what else I'm working on, you can follow me on [tumblr here](http://bendingsignpost.tumblr.com/).


End file.
